How to prepare for a college admissions decision?

[vonlost]

<p>Excerpt from the above:

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<p>Who gets admitted and why? The simple answer to that question is the applicants we want the most. But colleges and universities seem to say, or imply, that only “the best” or “the most qualified” get chosen. Does every (or any) college simply admit the most qualified applicants? Who defines most qualified? During my stints as an administrator at Bennington, Vassar, Duke, Boston College, Oberlin, and Reed, I have seen, in nearly every case, a version of admission by category, with the categories determined by institutional needs and priorities.</p>

<p>Most applicants compete not with the whole applicant pool but within specific categories, where the applicant-to-available-space ratio may be more, or less, favorable than in the pool at large. Categories can exist for athletics, ethnic diversity, international citizenship, institutional legacy and loyalty, musical and artistic needs, component schools or special academic programs, and in some cases, even gender. Students in the selected categories, which vary from institution to institution, have a “hook” because they help meet institutional needs. …</p>

<p>… Even when practiced, the category admissions approach has different impacts from institution to institution. Major state universities, for example, reserve slots for recruited athletes but in aggregate those slots are a small percentage of the incoming class. Assaults on affirmative action have all but closed an explicit ethnic diversity category for state colleges. A few small colleges lack varsity teams and face no pressure to favor alumni children. Small colleges rarely admit students to individual departments or schools. Yet there is no avoiding the daunting fact that the most selective colleges and universities pose an admissions challenge - where applicants outnumber available spaces by multiples of ten or even twenty to one, category admissions cuts an unforgiving swath.</p>

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